Alexandria - Egypt's Window to the Mediterranean
Alexandria is Egypt's second largest city and the country's window
on the Mediterranean Sea.
The city is a faded shade of its former glorious cosmopolitan self, but still worth a visit for its many cultural attractions and memories of a glorious past. It remains an important city, as Egypt's chief seaport on the Mediterranean and a home to at least 3.5 million Egyptians.
HISTORY: Sic transit gloria mundi - Alexandria was the eponymous foundation (in 334 BCE) of the Macedonian conquerer Alexander the Great (Iskander al-Akbar), a rival of Rome in its heyday, and the world's greatest center of learning for millennia, now a dusty seaside Egyptian town with an over-inflated population of 5 million. The French-style parks and the occasional...
